Story+1985-08-21+East+Rutherford,+NJ

”We were traveling down through Texas.....on the first part of our tour....and down ‘round Houston.....you’d see a lot of folks....that’d moved down there from up north.... came down with their wives and their kids.....looking for work in the oil fields or in the oil rigs....and when they got there, the price of oil dropped and they started shutting ‘em down.....laying people off....they’d end up with no place to go....they’d be sleeping in tents out on the side of the highway....or in their cars....and nothing else to do but move on.....this is called ‘Seeds’....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘Seeds’:**

”This is about blood money.....and Atlantic City....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘Atlantic City’:**

”Thanks.....this is a song, uh....I remember when I was a kid.....it was always a big deal once a year....we’d go down to the car lot....and my father’d trade in a 100 dollar car for another 100 dollar car (chuckles)(cheers)....and uh....somehow he’d keep it running through most of the year....I always remember when I was a kid, we had a car....where the window only went back, went down a little bit in the backseat..... and you know, like, when you’re a kid you’re always....I could always get my head out of it but I could never like get it back in (?) (chuckles)(cheers)....like my ears grew before my head did when I was small (chuckles).....anyway.....this is ‘cause, uh..... used cars.....never die.....they just break down one more time......”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘Used Cars’:**

”Seems like as you get older....you’re always leaving stuff behind.....when uh.....I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be.....you know.....I guess that’s what growing up is about.....but uh.....there’s certain things, I guess, that never leave you....no matter how old you get....this is uh.....this is about living in the shadow of a dream.....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘The River’:**

”Now, are you ready to testify ? (cheers)....good....then let’s go.... (a singalong)..... I gotta sit down and rest, oh yeah.....I gotta rest now, you see.....now every once in a while....I gotta take these rest breaks because I’m getting older, you know.....oh yeah.....no, I gotta sit down, I, I better lay down now....this is how I sleep in bed.... with my guitar right here.....at first....at first my wife didn’t like it but she’s getting used to it now (cheers)....you gotta take the whole package when it comes (cheers).... anyway (chuckles).....this is a song....for all you old-timers out there.....that’s right..... ‘cause in the end, it ain’t nothing but glory days.....are you ready, band ?....are you ready, people ? (cheers)....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘Glory Days’:**

”Thanks, thanks a lot (cheers)....this is uh.....when I used to be about 16.....used to be a Lincoln Transit Bus out of Freehold (cheers)....going to New York City....I used to take it every weekend.....I’d go up....I’d go down the Village where all the bands were playing (cheers).....(?) little cafes where they used to have.....they used to have matinees....band would start around 12 in the afternoon....and play all day....and I remember I couldn’t wait....till I was old enough to get out of the town I grew up in..... which uh....I guess that happens to ‘most everybody.....when you’re young, you kinda have a love-hate relationship with the place you were born in.....and uh, that’s.... that’s good, I think (chuckles)....but uh......for a long time....I got to travel, I went out on the road....and I was sure I’d never miss it.....for a long time I never did....then I got a little older and I’d start coming back, I’d get in my car....and I’d drive back home....I’d drive down the old streets I grew up on, past the house I used to live in....it’d be at night....you know, you look in the windows and see the lights on in the window and wonder who’s living there now.....who is in your room.....but uh.....funny thing is no matter.....no matter where I went, for some reason, I always came back home, I always wanted to come back home (cheers).....and uh....I guess when I was a kid......you know, I was afraid of belonging to something.....’cause if you admit you belong to something that means you got some responsobility to that thing that you belong to..... you say you´re a New Jerseyan (cheers) that means you got some responsobility to New Jersey (cheers)....and if you’re standing under....some of those flags I see out there....I guess that means you got some responsobility to the country that you were born in (cheers)....tonight we got some representatives from.....the Community Foodbank of New Jersey....and the Food and Hunger Hotline of New York City.... these are people that are out there trying to live up to the responsobility of their community....and what a foodbank is is every year 20 percent of all the food that gets....produced in the United States gets wasted or thrown away....meanwhile in every city and in every town....they got people going to bed at night hungry....we got old folks whose social security checks.....don’t get ‘em through the month, we got people that been hit hard by unemployment.....and with the government cutback in social spending , all those people are not getting caught in any safety net, they’re falling straight through to the bottom.....and what a foodbank does, it gets that food and it gets it to the agencies.....that serve the people.....and uh......it’s hard for me to understand how.....in a country that’s as rich as ours.....we can allow....and learn to live with this sort of poverty that we have because it’s not necessary (cheers).....it really isn’t...... and if the government’s not gonna do something about it....I think that means the people gotta do something about it (cheers)....so I guess these folks in these organizations are out there every day in people’s lives.....trying to make some of the ideas that I’m up here singing about tonight real....and without them and without your support of them , all I’m doing up here tonight is a bunch of words.....so if you can, their phone numbers are gonna be out....in the lobby during intermission.....you should check ‘em out, give ‘em a call, they could used volunteers, they could use any kind of support that you can give ‘em....and they’re here in New Jersey and they’re in New York every day trying to make ‘em a more decent and fairer place to live for all the citizens, you know (cheers)....now, the folks from the Community Foodbank of New Jersey said that.....said that.....I don’t know if anybody´s been here on any of the other nights we’ve played here but uh......they said you guys been helping ‘em out pretty good so.....I wanna say I appreciate it......will you New Yorkers get going ? (cheers).... and do something about it because.....in the end this is your hometown (cheers).....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘My Hometown’:**

”I said has anybody seen a 1969 Eldorado Cadillac anywhere ?.....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘Cadillac Ranch’:**

”I always think back......on my folks always working so hard when I was a kid..... I remember.....my mom......always going down to the finance company.....borrow money for Christmas.....getting it paid back just in time to borrow money for Easter....getting it paid back.....in time to borrow money for us to go to school....and.....it never seemed like it bothered her.....but my....my dad didn’t seem like he could.....he didn’t hide it so good.....seemed like at night he’d sit at the kitchen table and think about.....all the things we weren’t gonna get.....and uh....he’d get me thinking like that too....I’d lay up in bed at night.....and I’d feel like if something didn’t happen.....if something didn’t change, someday I was just gonna.....someday I’d just.....I felt like someday I was just gonna....like someday I’d just....I’d just.....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘I’m on Fire’:**

”Now once upon a time....not very far from this very spot...... (.....) Now, there I was.....I was still in high school....but I wasn’t doing very good.....doing bad in my studies....I was doing bad in sports....I was doing bad in....anything.....and they called me down to the guidance counsellor.....so I went down, I went into the office.....he looked at me and said.....’Mr.Springsteen (cheers).....what’s your problem?’....I said ‘I don’t know, I just.....I don’t know what I wanna do with myself, like, I’m not interested in anything, I don’t like anything, I got no faith, I ain’t got no hope, I ain’t got no, no.....no uh.....no uh....no, no close sexual contact with a member of the opposite sex (cheers)....I was spilling it all out.....he said.....’Well, son, that’s too big a problem for me, you better go home and talk to your folks’....so I went home.....I went in the kitchen, my dad was sitting at the kitchen table.....I said ‘Dad’, I said ‘Man....I’m in a lot of trouble and they sent me home from school.....I (?) I’m doing so good, I don’t know....I don’t know what I wanna do with myself.....you know, I ....I ain’t got no future, I don’t know what I wanna be, I ain’t got no faith in anything, I ain’t got no hope’....and he said.....’Get me another beer out of the icebox’ (cheers).....I said wait a minute now....so that was it, I decided I was gonna do myself in....I was gonna finish myself off, I was gonna go down to the Atlantic Ocean, jump in and drown......that’s right, I got out on the highway, I started hitchhiking.....I hitchhiked down to Asbury Park (cheers).....I had this phony I.D with me, I can remember.....I decided before I committed suicide that I would.....see if it worked and try and get a drink first.....so I went into this bar....went into the men’s room.....and on the wall.....it said ‘Advice and answer to all problems, call this number’....so I said I’d give it one more shot.....I went out and went to the phone booth.....put the dime in, called the number.....it rang once.....it rang twice....and then I heard (Clarence : ”Hello”)(cheers)....and it was some guy by the name of Clarence ‘He-who-knows-all’ Clemons (cheers).....so I, I told him my problem and he told me he thought he could help me out and he gave me his address.....I hitchhiked over to his house....knocked on the door.....door opened, we kinda stood there and checked each other out little bit (cheers)...we decided that we’d make good partners and be lifelong friends (cheers) (chuckles).....we made a good team....so Clarence, Clarence , he was having trouble too.....but he got a map that he bought from a gypsy.....and he said that if we followed this map at midnight.....it would lead us to the secret to the world and the answer to all our troubles....so then we packed up some peanutbutter-and-jelly sandwiches (cheers) .....we got in Clarence’s Oldsmobile and we started driving south down Route 9 (cheers)....we went through Freehold (cheers)....through Lakewood (cheers)....south through Toms River (cheers)....way down, deep into the pines.....and it started raining....it started hailing....and then a snowstorm hit....and then a heatwave struck.... and then the roof blew off the car.....and then we got two flat tires....and then the engine block cracked....and then the carburetor blew off....and then the left driver side door flew open.....and then.....and then.....the radio broke !.....there we were by the side of this dark road.....and according to the map....what we were looking for.....was just....on the other side....of those woods.....so into the forest we went.....(?)...it was spooky in there.....there were sounds coming from all over.....sounded like werewolves (cheers)....sounded like mad dogs barking (cheers)....sounded like homicidal cows (cheers)....sounded like the Jersey Devil out there (cheers).....and we came upon this big shade tree.....we could tell it was a shade tree because....it had its shades on (cheers)....(?)....Big Man, there ain’t no....wild animals or beasts ?.....I ain’t ever heard of anybody getting like ate alive in New Jersey or nothing....it happens like.....some place else, you know.....we’re alright in here, yeah ?....ain´t nothing like no man-eating squirrels ?....you sure ?....Big Man, I think I hear something behind us (?), I hear something behind us....it’s ok.....it’s alright...Big Man (?).....(yells) and all of a sudden....there was this big man-eating bear came out of the woods but.....instead jumping on us and making us his dinner, he was kinda friendly.....he said that....that he’d escaped from the circus....and he got sick of being in a cage.....that he’d been living out here in the woods all by himself and that he was lonely.....I could tell by the way he wore his hat that he was smarter than the average bear (cheers).....so we decided.....he said if we’d be his friends , he’d help us find what we were looking for....so we made a deal and back into the forest we went.....and there.....the clouds pulled away from the moon....and in the clearing....we saw the answer to our quest.... and there as we stood in the moonlight....we knew that everything was gonna be alright....because....’cause.....’cause....when we touched.....
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘Growin’Up’:**

”Thank you.....thanks a lot.....I just wanna thank everybody for coming down to the show here tonight (cheers).....and uh.....I know that.....a lot of you guys have waited online long time for tickets and I want you to know we appreciate it (cheers).... this is uh....I’d like to do this song for you, I guess...this is about the greatest song.....ever written about America.....’cause uh.....it was written by Woody Guthrie (cheers).... and uh....it gets....I guess, it gets right to the ....heart of the promise....of what our country was supposed to be about.....and as we sit here tonight, that’s a promise that’s..... eroding for a lot of our fellow Americans....I don’t know.....if you talk to steel workers from (?) Valley....Pennsylvania or if you talk to ‘em in Gary, Indiana or East Los Angeles....or if you talk to the farmers out in the Midwest, if they feel that this song is true anymore.....and I’m not sure.....that it is....but I know that it oughta be....and I know....no matter what anybody tells you.....that each and every person.....can make a difference in making this song more true every day (cheers).....I believe we can ....so anyway, gonna leave that....in your lap tonight (chuckles)...I’d like to do this....wishing you....all the longest life ....and the best of absolutely everything.....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘This Land Is Your Land’:**

”We ain’t going home yet, we’re just messing with you.....too early (chuckles)....yeah ....gonna do this.....for the Jersey girls (cheers)....New Jersey girls.....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘Jersey Girl’:**

”Ready for the last dance ? (cheers)....come on, let’s give it to ‘em....”
 * 21.08.85 East Rutherford, NJ, intro to ‘Sherry Darling’:**

//Compiled by : Johanna Pirttijärvi//